


Life Drawing

by stardropdream



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Artist Keith (Voltron), First Kiss, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Season 8 Doesn't Exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:52:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28815912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: After the war, Keith starts drawing again. But there's one subject (his favorite subject, really) that he just can't seem to get right.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 124
Kudos: 297





	Life Drawing

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the direct result of "I was just sitting there and then I thought of one scene and then I had to write an entire fic to make that scene make sense." It was also partly born from a desire to do an artist & model AU. (So leave it to me to do canonverse instead.) 
> 
> I've looked at this one for too long so I'm just going to yeet it out here lol. I hope you all enjoy. ♥

At first, Keith doesn’t tell anyone when he starts drawing again. 

It’s not that he wants to keep it a secret. He knows nobody else would really care. If anything, his friends would be supportive— but it’s the supportiveness itself that would make him feel squirmy and uncomfortable. The Paladins would be too enthusiastic in their encouragement and Keith doesn’t know what to do with that feeling. It’d make it all feel too real and far more important than it actually is— like his drawing is anything beyond scribbles on the page. 

Keith isn’t a good artist. 

He’s not _awful_ , but he _is_ out of practice. He used to be somewhat decent at perspective and lighting. He took a community-ed class for a few summers as part of a scholarship issued to group homes in the area, giving wards of the state opportunities for extracurricular activities like painting, ceramics, woodworking, basket-weaving. 

Keith remembers the experience as the only time, before the Garrison, when he actually enjoyed what he was learning. Class was different when you actually wanted to be there, doing what you were doing, and the instructor was inspiring without being insipid. 

During one of the lessons, students were instructed to sketch an egg sitting in a box with a focus on the lighting. The instructor complimented Keith’s approach to the lightest spot on the egg, leaving the page untouched by charcoal and slowly fading his way in. She’d nodded her approval at the way Keith made the egg look multidimensional on the page. 

Objectively, it was hardly an earth-shattering drawing, just charcoal on a newsprint paper pad, but Keith had felt that sense of accomplishment, edging charcoal away with his eraser to deepen the shadows around the underside. 

Keith can’t say why the urge to draw again strikes him now, a few months into official peacetime. That class feels long ago now— years and years, endless space-time and space-travel ago. But now, just like then, Keith has some modest supplies. He purchased everything after some searching through the wreckage that is Earth. It’s just a pad of paper, a package of vine charcoal, a smaller package of compressed charcoal, and an eraser. But it’s a start. 

It feels freeing, almost, when he flips to the first page and draws what he sees. His fingertips dust dark when he picks up the vine charcoal, careful not to pinch too hard as he strikes it across the page. 

He takes his time, starting with gesturing strokes until he gets the shape of the coffee cup on his table. He draws it multiple times on that same page, pausing to turn the cup to practice a new angle. 

The cups on the page are wobbly and oblong, each one slightly off in its perspective or sizing. When he assesses them, he decides he’s done relatively well on the handle only because he forced himself to focus on it, taking his time with it, but there’s something off about the perspective on the cup’s lip in each one. 

Nothing looks beautiful and that’s okay. Keith likes the clutter on the page, all the abandoned half-sketches and completed observations. There’s nothing remarkable about the sketches but it still makes Keith smile to see them. They don’t capture some deep human spirit, some dramatic retelling, or any revelation of Keith’s state of mind. They’re just cups, but they’re his. 

When Keith finishes, he closes the sketchpad and rubs his fingers together, feeling that pleasant haptic drag of charcoal coating his fingertips. It’s smeared itself over his skin where his hand rubbed across the page. There’s some on his thumb, too, thanks to his haphazard shading attempts. 

Keith smiles to himself, relieved. After battle and battle and battle, after mission and mission and mission, after war and war and war— he gets to have this little thing just for himself. 

He’s alive. He gets to live and do mundane things. He doesn’t always have to defend the universe and he doesn’t always have to fight. He can just be a boy at his kitchen table, drawing ceramic mugs. 

For now, Keith gets to create. 

-

Keith fills his sketchpad with drawings. It’s not a quick process but something born from when Keith has those free moments. Keith likes that he can take his time with it— patience yields focus, after all— and soon he evolves from coffee cups and random detritus on a kitchen table to the window and patio outside it, the pot he uses to boil pasta still sitting on the stovetop, a bowl of fruit he arranges like an artist stereotype. 

He likes the sketches he does of his hoverbike because it forces him to really focus on it— on the way it sits, on the power it holds. He’s aware of the way the light hits it, the sleek chrome and the faded paint. He sketches with his charcoal, adding the sharp shadows along the engine and the nose. 

He looks at the hoverbike and it makes him think of Shiro— but if he’s honest, most thinks make him think of Shiro. He sketches the hoverbike and thinks of all the rides into the desert with Shiro, sitting at the edge of a cliff to watch the sunset, racing through canyons with him, his white hair whipping behind him, his face split into a wide, happy grin, his laughter ricocheting off the desert stones. 

He stares down at his sketch once it’s finished and fiddles with the stick of vine, biting his lip. When he strikes at the bottom of the page, gesturing the vague shape of a human, he already knows it will look nothing like Shiro. 

He wants to draw Shiro, though. 

“Oh,” he whispers to himself when the thought hits him, the tip of his charcoal poised on the page. The shape is all wrong. He doesn’t even try to keep going. 

He thinks of how it should look— Shiro, arms crossed, leaning back against the hoverbike, smiling at Keith. The smile would be that half-turned one, like he knows a secret and knows Keith’s going to ask, like he’s challenging Keith to take that step forward. 

“Oh,” Keith says again, the single word a soft sigh. It’s embarrassing that he’d feel the patter of his own heart at the thought of Shiro, but he’s well-versed in all the ways Shiro makes him feel. Even the thought of Shiro is enough to make Keith feel warm. 

If Keith were to ask Shiro to pose for him, he’d smile at Keith then, too. It’d be a different smile entirely. Keith knows Shiro’s smiles well. 

He sighs and erases the half-formed lines of the almost-Shiro on the page, leaving the hoverbike alone at the center of it. 

-

It’s that desire to draw Shiro that lets him start looking towards living models. He quickly discovers he likes it— that move from the static to the living. He draws the wolf first, because it’s less intimidating than asking a human but less unpredictable like going for the birds outside his window. 

At the very least, Keith can ask the wolf to stay still on the couch as he sketches her, working his way through the anatomy of a cosmic, sentient space-wolf. The wolf is a kind model: she stays still for Keith, her head resting on her paws, her tail the only moving part when it flicks occasionally. She snoozes in her favorite sunbeam, poised in the perfect pose of contentment. 

She’s cute and it makes Keith smile. 

“Comfortable?” Keith asks when she lets out a little sigh after fifteen minutes. He’s trying not to put pressure on himself to draw the wolf well, but he _wants_ to. His hands are stained with charcoal, the page smudged with so much erasing. He’s trying. 

_Yes,_ comes the reply, crisp as a bell in his mind. It’s not so much the word itself as it is the feeling of the wolf’s presence. The mind link is a tentative thing, not a constant back-and-forth of thoughts, but more an occasional hiccup of the other’s sensations and emotions. The wolf is always very polite about respecting Keith’s moods, and her emotions come in little waves lapping at the shores of Keith’s mind, like someone waving from a window but knowing not to stray closer. 

Once he gets the hang of sketching her, it’s fun to fill a full page with her in different sleeping poses, chuckling to himself when she rolls around in her sleep. He likes the way the light reflects off her fur. It’s fun to capture it on the page. 

He imagines a scene like this— the wolf sprawled out in her sunbeam, Keith lounging on the couch. Maybe Shiro would be here, too, holding a cooling cup of tea and sitting beside the wolf, gently running his hand down her fur. The wolf loves Shiro and loves the way he pets her. According to her, Shiro’s the only one who knows how to pet her scruff in just the right way. Whenever Shiro is around, the wolf’s contentment shimmers down their mind-link, mirroring Keith’s own answering contentment. 

If he were a better artist, he could draw Shiro on the page now, sitting next to the wolf with his knee popped up and arm resting against it, one hand holding a cup and the other buried in the wolf’s fur. Shiro would be looking down at her, his hair falling forward across his forehead, his lips quirked in a soft, indulgent smile. He’d look handsome in the sunlight, sparkling and sweet. 

Keith blushes, finishing the final pass of shading under the wolf’s chin and sets the charcoal down. 

-

He draws his friends next during their weekly Paladin dinner get-together. 

It’s in a quiet moment while they wait for the food to finish baking in the oven, gathered around the table or flurrying back into the kitchen. Keith’s tucked up in a forgotten chair, just watching— as he tends to do. He likes Paladin dinners but sometimes it’s too much talking all at once. Nobody protests anymore when Keith retreats to a corner to regroup and they leave him alone to gather himself again. 

Keith’s grateful for it now, in a spot all his own and with a good vantage point to observe without being observed in turn. He follows the urge to draw when it strikes him, his hands shaking as he reaches into his backpack and pulls out his sketchpad and a pencil. He’s taken to carrying it with him lately, especially when he hikes out into the desert, and while he doesn’t go for the charcoal tonight, the pencil does just fine. 

He props his feet up onto the chair, hiding the sketchpad from sight, and simply watches. It’s nice to just watch, to go unnoticed and to only observe. Keith’s used to that after his time with the Blades— how easy it is to sink into the shadows. 

He takes his time before he tries to draw them. He gets the table down first and then the abstract shapes of his friends, circles and lines to start and then filling in. 

Allura is the easiest to draw if only because she holds herself so still, her shoulders back and her mouth hinting a smile. Keith gets the shape of her easily but struggles with her chin. He likes the cut of her cheekbones and the sharp point of her ear. She’s distinct on the page, memorable in the way her markings would cast light over her face if Keith spent the time to shade. 

Beside her sits Pidge, hunched over herself, the light glinting off her glasses. She’s biting her lip, muffling a smile as she listens to what the others are saying. Her expression changes halfway through Keith drawing her, sucking on the inside of her cheek, morphing and transforming her face into something younger and more playful. Her hair is wild around her, but Keith thinks he captures it well enough. 

Lance, by contrast, is near impossible to draw. He gets up and moves too often, sweeping around the table or joining Hunk in the kitchen only to be shooed out again. He wanders around the room, flopping onto the couch before popping back up again to return to Allura and Pidge at the table. Keith thinks he captures the wild energy of him, the stretch of his smile as he laughs. His nose is all wrong and Keith knows it, but he also doesn’t care enough to fix it. 

Hunk is difficult to draw because he’s here only in snippets, returning from the kitchen just to leave again. Keith focuses on his face— the warmth of his smile, the crinkle of his eyes. He’s easy to capture when Keith focuses on that: the warmth of him, the gentleness, the disapproval when Pidge tries to sneak something off the serving plate before everything else is ready. 

Keith looks at the figures on the page and feels satisfied. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good first attempt. Looking down at the sketches, it’s clear who he’s drawing. 

Shiro’s sitting at the table, too, chin on his palm as he listens to Allura and Pidge. Keith’s pencil tip touches the page, poised to fill him in, and takes a deep breath. It’s silly that he feels nervous, feels that pressure to do it _right._

When he draws him, Shiro is both the easiest and the hardest. He’s easy in that he’s still, lost in thought, poised in a way that Keith has a clear view of him. His expression is gentled, a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth, dimpling his cheek. 

He’s quiet. Keith’s always known that about Shiro— how he can so easily sink into the background during these hangouts, too, how he’ll simply observe their friends and find peace and joy in their happiness and chaos. 

Keith manages the vague gesture of Shiro— he knows his face well what for how often Keith’s caught himself simply staring at him. He knows the curve of Shiro’s jaw, the slope of his nose, the bow of his lips, the thickness of his eyebrows, the shadow of his hair. He knows the way his eyes smile, too, that perfect color that Keith always wants to get lost in. He knows the curve of Shiro’s fingers against his cheek, chin resting on his palm, his eyes trained on his friends as he listens to them speak and joke and laugh. 

Keith wishes he could properly capture it on the page— what it feels like for him to look at Shiro and to see him, to memorize his features, to observe him. Beloved Shiro, alive and well materialized on the page. It’s no memorial, no immortal sketch to pay tribute to Shiro as a man— it’s just Shiro in Keith’s own eyes. 

Shiro must feel Keith’s eyes on him because after a moment, his hand drops and he shifts. He finds Keith easily, like he knew exactly where to look. And maybe he did. For all that Keith can become shadow, Shiro is there to illuminate him again. His smile spreads slowly across his face, full-formed, and Keith watches Shiro’s face light up when he spots him. 

It’s a strange thing, to look at Shiro like this— to see in vivid detail the way Shiro’s eyes light up, how his smile grows. 

Keith can never do justice to that handsome face. Keith glances down at the page and knows that Shiro is all wrong. Keith glances back up again, meeting Shiro’s eyes, and offers a wobbly smile. 

Shiro’s hand shifts, gesturing to the seat beside him, left empty. It’s an invitation and Keith’s smile grows, lopsided and foolish as he nods his head, quickly closing and tucking his sketchbook away before he goes to Shiro’s side. 

“What are they talking about?” Keith asks in a low murmur as he drops into the seat next to Shiro, watching Allura and Pidge share a PADD and debate over the finer merits of a topic Keith can’t begin to follow.

“Something about tech that combines Altean alchemy in some way,” Shiro says and pauses. “… I think.”

Keith chuckles. His eyes glance over Shiro’s face, tracing over him now that he’s up close. Yes, he thinks, the Shiro in his sketchpad is all wrong. It’s not the essence of him, or him at his core self. Keith loves the gentleness of his smile when he’s relaxing with their friends, but it’s a different sort of smile from what Keith knows. 

Keith wants to capture the way Shiro looks the way Keith knows— the way his hair whips up after a good hoverbike race, his smile nearly manic when he wins and so damn blinding when Keith wins. Keith wants to capture the way Shiro looks right after sparring, sweat on his forehead, his eyes dark, his smile nearly a smirk. Keith wants to capture Shiro how he looks after a long day, when he’s exhausted and been working so hard, but still can joke with Keith, his eyes dancing with mischief. Keith wants to capture the way Shiro looks just before he hugs Keith, his expression serious but open only for him, their own private moment. 

“You alright?” Shiro asks, turned to look at him completely now that he’s been left behind in Allura and Pidge’s conversation. Lance flits around in the background, helping Hunk carry in the last of the food. 

Keith hums. “Just thinking.” 

Shiro nods, his hand lifting to touch Keith’s shoulder and squeezing. Keith wishes he could capture this feeling, too— the perfect weight of Shiro’s hand cupping his shoulder, the curl of his fingers, the way the light shadows along his knuckles and tendons. 

He glances down at the hand, his cheek brushing against Shiro’s thumb. 

“Oh,” Shiro says but doesn’t pull his hand away.

Keith laughs, cheeks heating. “Sorry.” 

Shiro squeezes and Keith longs to curl his fingers around his wrist, to turn his hand so he could press a kiss to his palm, to memorize the perfect way the lines cross over his skin, to trace the callused edges of his hard-working hand. He longs to hold both hands in his, memorizing the perfect and beautiful way the prosthesis mirrors him, the differences of light and shadow, the full span of his weight, the way they’d look if Keith twined his fingers through with his. 

Keith wouldn’t be able to draw if they did that, held together, but it’d still be a nice feeling. 

Keith likes the way Shiro touches him. He never touches anybody else the way he touches Keith and the small, selfish part within Keith loves that— loves to know that it’s Keith that Shiro looks for in an empty room. That they, inevitably, always find each other. 

-

Keith fills out the sketchpad and buys a new one. He buys himself some more charcoal, too. He doesn’t go for anything fancy, still unwilling to invest in a full artist’s kit, but he splurges on a sketchbook with thicker paper. Maybe if he gets good enough, he’ll buy other supplies that feel downright indulgent. 

He hesitates at first, but ultimately decides to show the drawings to Shiro. 

It’s a spontaneous decision— but who else could he ever show before Shiro, really?

It’s a few weeks into Keith’s habit of drawing their friends during movie nights and Paladin dinners. Tonight, he and Shiro walk back together. The rest of the team fell asleep on Allura’s couch, but Keith had stayed alert. He’d tried to draw everyone sleeping like that, but his eyes kept flickering back to Shiro, sitting askance in an armchair with his cheek smooshed against the chair’s back, his eyes hooded and sleepy as he watched the movie. 

And just like always, he’d inevitably sought Keith’s eyes in the dark— his attention flickering to Keith like a moth to a streetlamp. He’d looked at Keith for a long time, neither of them speaking, just looking at one another across the quiet room while their friends snored on. Keith was grateful for the dark if only so his blushing cheeks weren’t obvious, but he refused to look away. He lost himself in Shiro’s eyes, only jarring when the movie came to an explosive end and Coran startled awake with a snore-gasp. 

Keith usually hates eye contact from anyone else, but it’s a pleasant experience when it’s Shiro. Keith itches to do justice to that expression, but he can’t figure out how to capture it. 

“So,” Shiro says as they turn the corner and head down the next hallway together. “You didn’t like the movie?” 

It’s a late enough hour that nobody else is roaming around. It’s just the two of them, walking side by side. 

“What do you mean?” Keith asks with a hum. 

“I don’t think you watched more than five minutes of it before you started staring off into space,” Shiro says. He smiles. “I saw you out of the corner of my eye once everybody started snoring.”

Keith laughs, embarrassed as he tucks his hands into his pockets, aware of the smear of graphite along the underside of his hand where it rubbed against the page. He sways a little as he walks, bone-deep exhaustion catching up on him. He nearly bumps right into Shiro, their shoulders pressing together. Keith smiles a little when he feels Shiro press back, nudging him affectionately. 

“I’ve, um…” Keith hesitates, licking his lips. He feels a heat rising on his cheeks, but he realizes that he _wants_ Shiro to know. He’s never liked keeping secrets from him. Hell, he doesn’t really have many secrets left since their time in space— he shouted his biggest secret while sprawled out on a platform in a cloning facility, after all. After that, there’s not much left to keep tucked away inside. 

Shiro is patient as Keith waffles. He’s always been good about knowing when to press Keith and when to let Keith come to him.

“I’ve been practicing.” He looks up at Shiro. “Uh. Drawing. Just to give my hands something to do, you know? I took a class once and it was really nice and I kind of fell out of the habit but I wanted to pick it back up again.” 

He knows he’s rambling, blasting past the initial confession so he doesn’t have to study Shiro’s reaction to it. He has to tear his eyes away when they reach the end of the hallway, turning the corner to continue. He doesn’t want to get too lost in Shiro’s eyes. 

“Keith,” Shiro says when Keith pauses to breathe. “That’s great.” 

He sounds like he means it. Of course he means it. Keith feels himself blush even more. 

“Thanks,” Keith says. “It’s not a big deal. I’m not very good.” 

“I bet you’re being modest.” 

Keith shrugs, hands curled tight in his pockets. He longs to reach out to touch Shiro. “I’m learning.”

He glances up at Shiro to find him smiling. It’s a sweet look, one that makes Keith want to put it to paper instantly. He hates and loves just how quickly his sketchbook became full of Shiro— gestures of Shiro, Shiro’s face, Shiro at a meeting, Shiro lounging in a chair, Shiro napping. 

Keith has drawn so much of Shiro since that first night at Hunk’s home and yet he still can’t capture him correctly. 

“Thanks for telling me,” Shiro says when they reach Keith’s door, because of course Shiro would understand the inherent vulnerability for Keith to admit the new hobby. He doesn’t ask to see, doesn’t ask more questions than what Keith is willing to offer him— he simply touches Keith’s shoulder and squeezes. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Keith.”

“Thanks, Shiro,” Keith murmurs, his voice strangely hushed. He longs, as always, to curl his fingers around Shiro’s wrist, his thumb against his pulse point. He longs to press a kiss to Shiro’s knuckles just to see what he’d do. He longs to look up at him and say, _You know I love you, right? I know you do._

Shiro’s hand slips off his shoulder and down over his bicep, squeezing one last time before he draws away entirely. “Well…” He hesitates, his smile flickering in the dim light. “Goodnight.” 

“Goodnight,” Keith answers.

They stand there, just looking at each other. 

Keith breaks the moment with a laugh, looking down, and Shiro follows suit with his own deep, honeyed chuckle. 

“Night,” he says again and Keith laughs. He waves after Shiro but stays in front of his door, watching Shiro walk the short distance down the hallway to reach the door to his quarters, too. Once he does, he turns to look at Keith over his shoulder, smiling, and waves. 

Keith waves back, then goes into his room only once Shiro is gone from sight. 

Keith clicks on the light, flips open a page of his sketchbook, and attempts to capture that moment of Shiro looking back: eyes on Keith over his shoulder, his smile bright even in the darkness of the hallway. 

Like so many of the drawings, there’s an improvement, but it still doesn’t feel _right._

-

One week later, Keith shows Shiro the sketches. 

It’s after they’ve spent the day racing together— weaving their hoverbikes back and forth across the desert landscape. 

Keith isn’t great with landscapes yet— he’s still practicing— but before setting out, Keith allowed himself the urge to bring his sketchbook. He liked the idea of just drawing with Shiro there, unconcerned with hiding the sketchpad from sight, how Shiro would indulge him, lounging on his back and giving Keith privacy to create. If he were to show his sketching to anybody, it’d be Shiro, obviously. 

Today, the desert is in bloom, fresh after a stint of flurried rain, and the cacti stretch for miles, bursting with color and brightness. This was always Keith’s favorite time of year, and now the urge to capture the wildness and gentleness of the desert sings through Keith’s veins. The charcoal won’t do it justice and Keith wishes for the first time that he knew how to use color, can only imagine how nice it would look to watercolor the scene onto the page. 

Keith doesn’t even really ask Shiro. He waits until they’re sitting down at their favorite spot, the old cliff that leads down into the canyon, the rushing river far, far below. It’s dangerous and reckless to sit on the literal precipice together, but they’ve always been a little stupid like that. 

Keith loves those little reminders of who Shiro is— the kind of boy who sits on the edge of a cliff with his best friend, breaking curfew and laughing about the brass. It’s these small reminders that are just for Keith. Yes, only Keith knows who Shiro is: far from the golden boy the Garrison believed him to be, not some overworked, straight-laced, diplomatic mouthpiece. Shiro is reckless and brutal and scathing. He’s hardworking but only for what he chooses to dedicate his time to. He is his own. 

It was Shiro who dove off the cliffs first just for the joy of showing off. It was Shiro who would goad Keith away from a long night of homework to race under the stars instead, laughing and teasing Keith not to work so hard that he muddled himself down and lost sight of his dream. 

Keith loves Shiro so infinitely it’s nearly suffocating sometimes. 

It’s that thought that encourages him to unzip his bag and tug out his sketchpad. He flips past the warmup sketches he isn’t proud of and settles for a recent drawing of his hoverbike. He’s gotten better at drawing it lately, and he’s tried new angles— one page is a point-of-view shot of the hoverbike as seen from the pilot’s seat, drawn as Keith sat and waited for Shiro to arrive for their race that morning. 

“If you— um, want,” Keith manages and nothing more, shoving the book into Shiro’s hands. 

Keith has to look away as Shiro blinks at him and then looks down. 

Keith knows what Shiro will see. The charcoal looks dark on the page in the bright light of the desert afternoon. Keith holds his breath, unsure what to expect. He knows Shiro will be kind and encouraging— he always is— but it feels important, far too vulnerable and raw in a way he’s never really let himself be before. Not like this. It’s as he puts the book in Shiro’s hands that he realizes just how much it means to him that Shiro like what he sees. He hopes Shiro does. 

He closes his eyes, taking a steadying breath when Shiro is quiet for a long moment.

He shivers when Shiro breathes out, his elbow nudging gently into Keith’s side to draw his attention again. 

“Keith,” he says, voice soft, and waits for Keith to look at him. “This is really good.” 

Keith at once craves the praise and wants to rebuke it. The only reason he doesn’t is because he knows how much Shiro hates to see Keith dismiss himself. So, instead, he takes a breath. He smiles, although it feels wobbly and uncertain. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yes,” Shiro says without hesitation. 

Keith’s heart does a pathetic little twist in his chest and he feels, absurdly, the urge to cry. Blinking, his smile only grows, his cheeks glowing pink with pride. 

“… Thanks.” 

Shiro turns his attention back to the drawings, studying all the little details. He doesn’t move to turn the pages in the sketchbook without Keith’s permission, instead looking up each time he wants to move on. 

Keith turns the pages for him, silent as Shiro regards each one. Keith watches Shiro grin down at the sketches, his eyes tracing over everything patiently. Keith’s eyes stray to Shiro instead of the art, considering every little change on Shiro’s face, trying to discern his approval. 

“Are you mostly just drawing hoverbikes, then?” Shiro finally asks after the fifth page of the machines. 

Keith shakes his head. He swallows, gently taking the sketchpad back from Shiro and flipping through several pages of failed Shiro drawings so he can show sketches of his quarters, of the wolf on the couch, of the coffee cups lined up in a row on the windowsill, of the birds flitting along the nest they’re building in an alcove of the Atlas now that she’s mostly stationary. 

He shows Shiro a picture of their friends during the last game night: Allura and Hunk hunching over the board and slowly growing more competitive as they near winning, Pidge dozing off since the lack of strategy bores her, and Lance watching on in apt horror as he loses miserably. Shiro’s at the edge of the page, too, watching them all as the wolf sleeps with her head in his lap. Coran’s in the background, reentering the room with a drinks tray. 

It feels safer than showing Shiro the pages and pages of sketches that are just… him. 

“This is amazing, Keith,” Shiro says. He sounds hushed, his smile so incredibly fond. “There’s— so much movement and motion in this? And everyone’s faces!” 

Keith cracks a smile, relief and embarrassment simmering in his chest. He ducks his head, feeling shy but not enough to pull the sketchpad away from Shiro. Somehow, it’s relieving to know Shiro’s looking. He clears his throat, flipping the page to show a few of the other sketches he’s most proud of.

Shiro studies each one carefully, offering praise— he’s specific with it, too, always finding the small details that make Keith feel like he’s glowing. Shiro compliments Keith’s shading or the way he captured the wolf’s inquisitive eyes or the layout of the Paladins all nodding off during a boring debrief meeting about flight safety drills. Shiro isn’t an artist and he apologizes for not knowing the language, but it’s not as if Keith knows it much better than him. It’s nice, really, to see what it is about each drawing that captures Shiro’s attention. 

“And you did all this just by looking?” Shiro asks, nodding towards the page full of Hunk’s face. “You didn’t ask anybody to pose?” 

“No,” Keith says. “I just try to do the gesture drawings, or I fill it out more later by memory. I, uh, sometimes you all hold still long enough but it’s never enough to do a proper portrait.” 

Shiro nods. “Keith… that’s incredible. Not a lot of people could do that, I bet.”

Keith doesn’t really know what’s typical of artists or not. He’s not an artist, anyway. He’s just a guy who draws sometimes. He shrugs away the praise but can’t hold back his smile, glowing from Shiro’s attentions. He shouldn’t be surprised that Shiro always knows what to say. 

“Do you have any self-portraits?” Shiro asks, looking up at Keith again with a tilt of his head. “You’re missing from all these scenes.” 

Keith shrugs again. He’s never actually thought about that before. 

“If you want to keep doing drawings of people, I bet you could ask and anybody would pose for you,” Shiro says. “I bet the others would love to help you.” 

Keith blushes at the mere thought of it. “What, like— ask everybody to _model_ for me?” 

Shiro laughs. “With that tone, you make it sound so scandalous!” 

Mostly, Keith just can’t picture someone like Pidge or Lance being patient to stay still long enough for Keith to do a proper portrait. Hunk or Allura might do it, but then they’d be overly enthusiastic with their praise when Keith showed them, and it’d be too embarrassing. Or worse: he’d do a bad job and they’d struggle their way through platitudes. Maybe he could ask his mom. Or—

He looks up at Shiro to find Shiro already smiling at him. “Would you want to?” 

“Me?” Shiro asks, looking down at the sketchbook’s page again. His cheeks turn red. “You’d want to draw me?” 

It’s absolutely ridiculous to think that Keith wouldn’t. But then again, he’s shown Shiro many, many sketches of their friends and objects, but very little of Shiro himself. All the sketched scenes Keith’s shown to him have Shiro off on the side of the page, never the center of the attention. Maybe because of that, Keith gave the impression that Shiro is an unworthy subject. 

“You have— a unique face,” Keith says, and his voice sounds strangled and stupid. He hopes Shiro doesn’t take it as an insult. “A- and I’d like to. Draw you, I mean. You’re— you’re hard to capture.” 

Shiro’s brow crinkles, like he wants to personally apologize for his face. There’s very little need for that, really— Keith’s unbiased opinion is always that Shiro is the most beautiful man in the universe, after all. It’s Keith’s own shortcomings that make him incapable of capturing it in the right way. 

“You’re sure?” 

“Only if you want,” Keith says. “If it’s too strange—” 

“No!” Shiro says. He smiles then, and it looks a little brighter. “No, it sounds nice. Like… a good opportunity to just spend time with you, you know? And if I can help, I want to.” 

Shiro is always so earnest, so sweet with him. Keith doesn’t know how to handle it. Sometimes Keith has a hard time understanding how he could be worth so much of Shiro’s time, attention, and affection. He doesn’t know what he’s done to be worthy of Shiro— and he knows how much it would hurt Shiro to hear Keith say as much. Keith tucks the thought away again. 

“Do you want to right now?” Shiro asks.

“Now?” 

“We still have time left in the day, right?” Shiro shifts, turning to face Keith fully, his eyes lit up. He sits cross-legged, hands in his lap. “How do you want me?” 

Keith feels his heart get all twisted up in his chest. “Oh— okay. Sure. Uh.” 

He turns back to his backpack, digging around for his package of charcoal sticks. Shiro sits patiently, watching Keith as he flips quickly to the back of his sketchbook, finding the next blank page and getting himself comfortable.

“This might be really boring, though,” Keith says. “You’ll just be… sitting.” 

“I don’t mind being quiet,” Shiro says. “Or being still. I’m good at that.” 

Keith can’t place the tone— if it’s a genuine statement or something laced with self-deprecation, the old, lingering pain of the astral plane. He looks at Shiro for a long moment, meeting Shiro’s eyes. Shiro smiles and it lights up his face as he shifts on the ground. 

“I’ll tell you if I get uncomfortable,” Shiro says. “How’s that?” 

Keith feels a small fear loosen in his chest. He nods his head, grateful, and sits back, fingertips tracing over the paper as he gazes at Shiro. Shiro is still, his eyes resting gently on Keith’s. Despite the desert warmth, Keith feels himself shiver, the slightest ripple trailing down his spine. 

Keith clears his throat and adjusts his sitting, moving back a bit to get comfortable. “You should— go back to how you were sitting. Looking out over the cliff.” 

“Oh, the dramatic pose,” Shiro says, swiveling on his butt and draping his legs over the edge of the cliff again. He leans back on his hands, tilting his head a bit. “I get it. How’s this?” 

It is a picturesque pose— Shiro looks relaxed but handsome, the light hitting his hair like the spark of a match, his eyes scanning the horizon. Keith sits slightly behind Shiro so he’s mostly getting Shiro’s back and the side of his jaw, a three-quarter view that puts Shiro’s face out of Keith’s line of sight. 

If the point is to get better at drawing Shiro’s portrait, this isn’t the way, but Keith likes the pose too much to change it, and it seems like a nice lead-up to doing actual portraiture, where he’ll be forced to study Shiro’s face in real-time, and Shiro will see him studying. 

“Yeah,” Keith says. “Like that’s good.” He thinks of the night in the hallway, with Shiro looking back at him over his shoulder. This pose is similar— Shiro’s back to him— but now Shiro looks to the horizon. 

It’s almost lonely, actually. Keith’s tempted to sketch himself in the spot beside Shiro as he works, especially when he places Shiro slightly off-center on the page. But Keith has no confidence in drawing himself, not without reference, and so he focuses only on capturing Shiro as best he can. 

They work in silence. Shiro stays as still as he’s able, only occasionally shifting when he grows uncomfortable on the ground or his shoulders bunch. The wind licks at his hair, but otherwise, he’s stationary. 

Keith’s fingers tremble as he sketches across the page, terrified of the moment he finishes and has to show this to Shiro. If it isn’t good enough, Shiro will be polite anyway. But Keith wants it to be good. Keith wants to do justice to Shiro, wants to be able to capture him on the page. 

Keith studies Shiro. He likes the way the wind plays with his hair, like even nature itself wants to pet through the silver strands. Shiro has long since shrugged off the racing jacket he wore on the ride, leaving his arms bare and exposed— the sleek tech of his new arm, all white and blue veined, and his human arm, flexed slightly so the sun casts shadows around his bicep and in the well of his elbow. His shirt fits him tightly, stretched obscenely across his back. 

Keith wants to imagine Shiro’s face as he looks out over the desert, aware of Keith sketching him. His body language is unguarded, open and vulnerable the way he only ever is with Keith. His face would match, Keith thinks— serene, maybe, but comfortable. He’d be soft at the edges, his mouth hinting a smile. He’d probably be squinting because of the sun, but otherwise would look soft there, too. He wouldn’t look so serious the way he does for the public. He wouldn’t be guarded, not out here, not when it’s only Keith. It’s Shiro as Keith knows him, the way Keith likes him best— Shiro when he doesn’t feel like the world is staring back at him. 

Shiro breaks position once. He shifts forward, lifting one hand to scratch at his nose. He freezes as soon as he does it, whipping his head around. “Shit,” he says, eyes wide. “I didn’t mean to move—”

“Turning to look at me only makes it worse, big guy,” Keith says and laughs at Shiro’s devastated expression. “It’s fine,” he reassures quickly. “Turn back around, please.” 

Shiro turns back with another apology, planting his hand back behind him. It puts him in the same position as before, but he’s shifted slightly. Keith stares down at his incomplete sketch, unsure if he should correct him or not. 

There’s tension in Shiro’s shoulders. “Am I off? Just move me.” 

Keith bites his lip and reaches out, shifting Shiro’s hand until it’s planted at the right spot adjacent to his hip. Shiro moves easily, his body bowing beneath Keith’s touch. Keith draws away, looking at the curve of Shiro’s cheek, and gulps. 

He reaches out, touching Shiro’s jaw, and pushing very gently, guiding Shiro where to look. He feels Shiro draw in a deep breath, a breath he holds even once Keith’s pulled back again.

“There,” Keith says quietly. “Like that.” 

“Okay. Sorry.” 

Keith nods his head even though Shiro can’t see it and goes back to focusing on the angle of Shiro’s body. He’s never really paid attention to the width of Shiro’s waist relative to his shoulders before, not with this precision to detail, at least. He’s appreciated Shiro’s body as an abstract, but it feels so exposing to actually look at Shiro— to study Shiro’s body’s relationship with the space around him. The circumference of his biceps, the knobs of his spine changing the shadows on his shirt, the splay of his thick fingers in the desert sand. 

Keith could spend hours like this, but he doesn’t want to force Shiro to stay in one position for so long. The light is fading now, anyway, inching closer and closer towards the distant hills. It changes the light and makes it difficult for Keith to keep focusing as the night looms ever-closer. They’re still about an hour from sunset, but it’ll feel just as dark as the night once the sun sinks behind the mountains. 

“Okay,” Keith says, licking his lips. “You can move.”

Shiro sighs as he relaxes, flopping all the way back so he’s laid out in the sand. He grins up at Keith, and _that’s_ the face Keith wishes he knew how to capture— earnest, sweet, boyish. He has no idea why he should notice it now, but it’s always such a rare smile. Keith wants to memorize it. He wants to put his fingers to Shiro’s lips and trace it. He wants to spell his devotion to Shiro with his breath against his, their bodies bowed together. Keith knows he’ll never be able to recreate such a smile on the page. 

“If you want to see—”

“Of course I do,” Shiro says like the mere suggestion otherwise is absurd. He rolls onto his side, hip digging into the sand. He smiles up at Keith. “Whatever you want to show me, I want to see.” 

“I hope it wasn’t too boring,” Keith says as he swallows, working up the courage to turn the page around and show Shiro what he’s created.

Shiro stretches out in the sand and then sits up with a groan, digging his knuckles into the small of his back, like he’s working out some tension. “Not at all. It was nice. I think I just went really meditative with it.” 

Keith nods, takes another deep breath, and flips the drawing away before he can convince himself out of it. 

“Wow,” Shiro breathes, the response too immediate to be anything other than genuine.

It makes Keith blush. It’s not a finished piece, not by a long shot, but it’s a decent enough attempt. He’ll need to get used to taking his time— with working with a living model when he has the permission to linger, when he can be more realistic with it rather than cartoonish or quick. The portrait is a reasonable likeness. 

“You make me look so nice, Keith,” Shiro says with a smile. He’s always far too compassionate, far too sweet. It does things to Keith’s beating heart. 

“You make it easy,” Keith says and laughs, like it’s a joke and not the truth. Shiro chuckles, too, the sound warmed and honeyed. 

“Really,” Shiro insists. He studies the drawing for a long moment, eyes sweeping over the page. “Thank you, Keith. You really— this looks great.”

“I’m glad you think so. Next time—” He snaps his mouth shut. “Um.”

But Shiro just grins at him, his cheeks pink. He prompts: “Next time?”

“I’ll— I’ll set a timer. To give you breaks to stretch. A- and… And I want to try drawing your face.” 

“My hard-to-capture face,” Shiro teases. He beams and it’s devastating and handsome and stabs right into Keith’s gut. “That sounds great, Keith.” 

When Keith gets home that night, he opens to the newest sketch, wondering if he should try to flesh it out, make it sharper and more distinct. But the more he looks at it, the more he likes the softness of the moment, how undefined it looks. It looks raw, like the potential is there just waiting to happen. 

It’s Shiro, natural and serene out in the desert. It’s Shiro, contemplative and sweet. It’s Shiro, alive and well. 

Keith looks at the spot beside Shiro, tempted to try drawing himself there but terrified of ruining the entire portrait by his own inclusion. He closes the sketchbook instead. 

-

“Where should I sit?” Shiro asks a few days later when Keith finally works up the courage to ask to draw Shiro again. 

Keith points to the spot near the window, where he’s set out his most comfortable chair. Shiro moves over to it, his bare feet shuffling across the floor. He looks relaxed and a little sleepy, but it’s that same level of comfort as the first day Keith drew Shiro out in the desert.

Shiro sits down and looks at Keith expectantly. The light’s doing exactly what Keith had hoped— haloing around Shiro, making him look like he’s just emerged from a dream. Shiro doesn’t need the help of any sort of lighting to look handsome, but like this, he looks gentle. 

“Can you move your chin down a little?” 

Shiro obeys but goes too far. He looks hunched then and it’s not quite the effect Keith wants. 

“Up again?” 

Shiro goes too high this time. It’s almost comical even though Keith knows it isn’t Shiro playing a joke. 

“Just come over here and put me how you want me,” Shiro says with a sigh when it’s clear Keith isn’t satisfied. 

Keith hesitates, swallowing. He’s not sure why he even hesitates— he’s touched Shiro before, and Shiro’s touched him. There’s nothing strange about positioning Shiro where he wants him, but it still feels strangely intimate as he steps closer, a hand between Shiro’s shoulder blades to guide him to sit up straighter. 

Up close, he wants to touch Shiro’s hair, to brush it away from his face even though he knows it won’t stay in one spot. 

“Sorry,” Shiro says when Keith positions him carefully. “I’m not a very good model, am I?”

“You’re a perfect model,” Keith answers quickly and hopes it isn’t too exposing. He forces himself to take a breath and turns his head, observing Shiro’s face. He’s going for profile today, since he knows the best way to improve anything is to keep doing what you wish to improve, and he’s not particularly good with profile. 

Keith cups Shiro’s chin in a gentle grip, tipping his head down to the exact position he wants, so the light catches in his hair and drapes across his cheeks, putting his handsome face in stark relief. Shiro says nothing more as Keith arranges him, moving where Keith adjusts him. 

There’s a quiet power in the way Shiro lets Keith hold him. He holds his breath until Keith lets go of him, breathing out slowly. 

“I promise not to move this time,” Shiro says. 

“We’ll take breaks,” Keith promises. 

Satisfied with Shiro’s positioning, Keith drags the second chair closer and starts working. He spends a long moment just looking at Shiro. There’s always been something elegant about Shiro, although it isn’t the word Keith would use first to describe him. His essence is not one of elegance— that’s Allura, or maybe his mom— but there’s something almost delicate about Shiro as he sits by the window, his eyes looking out at the horizon again. His jaw is sharp, his cheekbones defined, but his eyes are tender. He’s almost smiling, that sort of gentle almost-curve that betrays all the inner light within Shiro. 

He doesn’t move as Keith works, although Keith sees the few times his fingers twitch, like he’s going to scratch an itch or fiddle with his hair. But he keeps still, unwilling to disrupt Keith’s focus. 

Shiro is a work of art, though. Not just for the handsomeness of his face or the way his shirt stretches perfectly over his chest, but for the story his eyes tell. It’s what Keith wishes he could capture best. His sketchbook is full of pictures of Shiro and yet they never look right, never look the way Keith wants him to— never quite capturing how beautiful Shiro is, how kind he is, how perfect and encompassing Shiro is. His essence, his very being, is too great and expansive just for charcoal and paper, it seems. Or perhaps Keith isn’t a talented enough artist yet to do him justice. 

When the chime goes off on the PADD to signal their first break, Keith sets his charcoal down with a sigh and nods when Shiro asks to stretch. He watches Shiro pop his back, rolling his shoulders and slumping a bit in the chair. He looks young like this, quiet and contemplative— it’s not the same sort of serious poise he wears during meetings or as a leader. It’s softer than that, something he trusts only with Keith. 

“I hope you’re not too bored,” Keith says.

Shiro shakes his head. “This is nice. Really.” 

Keith finds that hard to believe, but Shiro always was accommodating and kind. 

“I can turn on some music or—” 

“I don’t want to distract you,” Shiro says. “It’s okay. The silence lets me think.” 

Keith wants to ask what he thinks about— wants to guess what could be going on inside Shiro’s mind to make him look so peaceful. It feels like too much to ask, though. 

Keith fiddles with his box of charcoal, arranging the vine pieces in order of bluntness. He’s gripped a few of the sticks too tightly so they’ve snapped in half, but he uses those for shading purposes, pressing the flattened end and scribbling. 

He likes the quietness of vine charcoal, really. Compressed feels too dark sometimes, and he hasn’t used any of it to capture Shiro’s likeness. The vine charcoal makes his portrait look fuzzy at the edges, but it’s still the beginning phases. Like at any moment, the Shiro on the page might turn his head and look at Keith, a process of motion. 

Keith and Shiro alternate between a series of posing and resting, the chime breaking them both from a trance. Shiro is obediently still, only needing prompting from Keith a couple times after each break to return to his previous pose. 

Keith doesn’t try to capture Shiro in full. He isn’t confident with clothes and how the folds work, but he’s not about to suggest Shiro take his shirt off, either. He settles for going as low as his shoulders and stopping there, focusing on Shiro’s face instead. That’s his goal, after all. 

“I think I’m finished,” he says before the chime goes off another time. He fumbles to set the datapad to silent, smearing a dusting of charcoal along the button. “Do you want to see?”

“Always,” Shiro says with a smile. “Can I move?”

“Go ahead,” Keith says and watches Shiro swivel around in the chair. Keith bites his lip and holds the sketchpad out to Shiro. 

He’s spent a lot of time on this one. For now, all Keith can see are the flaws, but he knows that wouldn’t be what Shiro sees. Just as always, Shiro’s eyes sweep over the page and he takes his time studying it. His eyes brighten, his smile curving. 

“Wow, Keith,” Shiro says. His smile is a funny thing, like he’s happy but unsure what to do with it. Keith watches the joke tuck into the corners of his mouth. “I look so… pretty.” 

Keith huffs at the note of surprise in Shiro’s tone, offended on his behalf. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No!” Shiro laughs, blushing. “I just— you’re very flattering.” His smile turns shy. “Shouldn’t I have heavier bags under my eyes or something?” 

Keith scoffs. “You can’t tell me you’re not handsome, Shiro. You’re not blind.” 

Shiro laughs again, shaking his head. He holds the page back out. “Don’t get me wrong, Keith. You’re— ah. I really like your art.” 

Keith hums, frowning. He studies the page, looking at Shiro’s face in profile. If anything, he could stand to make him look handsomer, Keith thinks. He’s still not fully capturing Shiro’s beauty. 

“I mean it,” Shiro says. “It’s great to see you doing this, Keith. And without a class, too. It’s— really impressive. And I’m really happy you want to draw me.”

“Of course I do,” Keith says. “I want to… do you right. And it’s nice to just be here with you.” 

Shiro smiles wider, tilting his head until a few strands of hair spill out and whisper across his temple. “I like spending time with you, too.”

“It’s not super exciting,” Keith says, hedging. “We’re not really talking.” 

Shiro shakes his head. “It’s still nice. Just to be around you, you know? I like the company.”

Keith nods, his heart in his throat. Whenever Shiro says things like this, Keith has to wonder if Shiro is lonely— he wonders again at what Shiro thinks about when they’re quiet together. 

“I… I always like being with you, too, Shiro.” Keith looks at him, gripping the sketchbook perhaps a bit too tight. “I like spending time together.” 

“Me too, Keith,” Shiro says softly. His hand reaches out, touching Keith’s shoulder, the touch lingering and light. It takes a moment before he remembers to squeeze. 

-

Keith takes a picture of himself with his PADD later, sketching a rough profile shot of himself in his best attempt at a self-portrait. He sketches on the opposite page to Shiro’s portrait and it looks like he and Shiro are looking at one another, separated by the spiral spine. 

It’s hard to look at his own face, almost, even when he divorces himself from the strange embarrassment he feels when drawing himself. He looks at his face as observantly as possible, studying the anatomy and structure. It’s hard to capture the specific texture of his scar, the sharpness of his eyes. He doesn’t look right. 

When he finishes, he’s unsure how to judge the success of it. At the very least, he’s captured their tendency for intense eye contact. Privately, Keith thinks he looks too severe— he should look softer if he were looking at Shiro. 

He takes a full hour hanging out with Shiro before he has the strength to even offer it for Shiro’s inspection. He’s not sure why it feels so vulnerable to do so, but Shiro regards the sketch with the same level of care he does any of the other portraits or sketches. Keith sweats in that suspending silence, waiting for Shiro’s assessment. 

Shiro tilts his head and then smiles as he looks up at Keith again. “It’s interesting to see what about yourself you emphasize and what you downplay.”

“What do you mean?” Keith asks, cheeks red.

Shiro shakes his head. “I’m not sure how to describe it. Like this Keith looks almost… sharp?” Shiro looks up from the page to study Keith. His eyes flick back and forth between the portrait of Keith and Keith’s actual, living face. “Hmmm… Maybe it’s the eyes? I think you’re softer than you’re depicting here, almost?” His eyes widen. “Not that this is bad! It’s really good, I promise!” 

Keith laughs, embarrassed despite himself. “I— yeah. I thought the same, actually. About the sharpness.” 

“You look really pretty,” Shiro says, eyes on the page. Then, quieter still: “We look like we’re looking at each other.” 

Keith laughs again. “I thought that, too.”

“Guess we’re in sync,” Shiro says, looking up again. It feels suffocating in its own strange way, the heavy weight of Shiro’s gaze upon him. Their eyes meet and Keith nearly looks away. 

“I couldn’t get the scar right.” 

“I think it’s pretty,” Shiro says, attention on Keith’s face. He smiles— and Keith’s never noticed the way Shiro’s scar moves with it, like it’s smiling, too. Happiness always fits nicely on Shiro.

“Yours is, too,” Keith says and feels foolish for it. 

Shiro’s smile grows. “We match.” 

Keith’s heart swells and he can’t help his small laugh, something pleased but a little sad, his smile wobbly. His eyes trace over the shape of Shiro’s face, the curve of his scar that matches his smile, and thinks of everything they’ve been through together. 

“We do,” he whispers. 

-

Keith keeps practicing other scenes and types of drawing. He likes landscapes because of the challenge of the small detail with the larger mood, how he always wants to capture the desert in bloom or the desert at dusk, how he hopes he can convey the feeling he had when watching it.

He likes gesture drawings, he discovers. There’s something freeing about doing the rough shape of a human walking when he gives himself only a minute to capture it. Broad strokes, blocky movement. He’s not great with full bodies yet, but he’s getting better with the faces. He likes to people-watch now to find inspiration.

He still likes to draw his coffee cups, too. He has a few ceramic ones that Allura made on a throwing wheel and they’re imperfect and lopsided. Keith likes the challenge of drawing them to convey their uniqueness without it looking like a mistake on the page. 

The wolf seems to enjoy being sketched out, too. Keith always gets the distinct impression of pleasure across their mind-link whenever Keith starts sketching her, like the wolf’s posed herself purposefully in Keith’s line of sight, waiting for his inspiration to strike. 

“Diva,” he tells her one night. The wolf just huffs, the flood of her self-satisfaction outweighing any scathing remark. Keith can’t exactly be mad at her. She is, after all, a great model. 

Shiro, though, is his favorite subject to draw. Keith acknowledges he might be slightly biased on that, but it doesn’t stop him from feeling it. He doesn’t draw Shiro every day— that’d be too intense for them both, Keith thinks— but whenever they hang out one on one, Shiro offers. Sometimes it’s just a quick sketch of ten minutes or so, sometimes longer. Shiro always seems ready and eager for whatever Keith wants to do.

Keith’s drawings of Shiro are getting better, Keith thinks, but he’s not perfect at it yet. He wants to be, even as he knows how likely it is that he’ll never be actually _perfect_ at it. He knows that’s not the point. But it feels important to do Shiro well, to hold proof of Shiro in his hands. 

“You’re so serious about your art,” Shiro says today as he studies the page of coffee cups Keith shows him. Keith has tentatively tried using color, just a few swipes of colored pencils on the brown page— whites, blues. Nothing special. “It’s really inspiring, Keith.” 

Keith’s trying to get better at accepting the praise when Shiro offers it. It’s hard, sometimes, to see the value in his own work or anything he does. He knows he’s not amazing, but he’s enjoying it, and he’s grateful that Shiro supports him in it. 

But then, Shiro’s always supported Keith in everything he could be. 

“Thanks,” he says quietly. “That means a lot.” 

Shiro nods, squeezing Keith’s shoulder. He’s always respectful with Keith’s art. He always looks with such care. _Really_ looks. Keith loves his observations and insights, that the praise is guided and not just blindly offered. He likes that Shiro never flips through the sketchbook without permission and always lets Keith point to what he wants Shiro to see. He never takes more than what Keith offers to him. 

Keith never really knows what to do with all the love he feels for Shiro. Keith asks, “Ready for me?”

“Yeah.” Shiro looks at him expectantly, waiting for Keith to arrange him. 

Keith bites his lip and then reaches out, touching his arm. “Just like this is fine.” 

Shiro nods. He’s right in front of Keith, sitting comfortably and looking at him head-on. It’s intense to feel Shiro’s gaze on him. 

He must notice Keith noticing it, too. “Do you want me to turn my head?”

“No.” 

This is what they do: they look at each other. Keith likes the idea of glancing up from the sketchbook only to meet Shiro’s eyes. It feels like, lately, Shiro is always watching him. Keith knows he’s always watching Shiro, always has been. It’s a strange, suspenseful feeling— like they’ve been only just missing each other. He likes it: to be watching Shiro as Shiro watches him in turn. 

“I think it’ll help,” Keith says.

“What do you mean?”

Keith sighs. “I just— I’ve been trying to figure out how to draw you and it always looks wrong to me.” 

“Because you make me look too handsome, Keith,” Shiro teases. 

Keith grunts. “It’s not that.” 

“Then?”

“I… I don’t know,” Keith says. “When I look at you and then I look at how I draw you, something seems off.” 

“I think you do a good job, Keith,” Shiro says as they settle into their spots, facing each other fully. Shiro sits cross-legged, his hands resting in his lap and Keith’s sketchbook before him, propped up against his knees. 

“I’m glad you think so…” 

Keith can hear the doubt in his voice, so he isn’t surprised when Shiro shakes his head. 

“I mean it,” he says. “I don’t know if anybody else could draw me like you do. And I’m glad you do.”

“You do seem to like posing,” Keith says, swallowing. “I’m glad you’re willing to. I know it must be—” 

“I mean it,” Shiro says again, interrupting gently. 

Keith stops talking but Shiro takes a moment. Keith watches something empty in his eyes, watches him go still for a moment too long— not the comfortable sort of serenity, but something more jagged at its edges. 

Just as Keith’s about to reach out to him, Shiro says, “I’m— I was invisible for a long time. Nobody saw me. But… you do. You always do. It feels… nice to be seen.” 

He says it quietly, like the confession might upset Keith, or like Keith might laugh it off as a joke. Instead, it stabs right into Keith. He feels his heart lodge into his throat. He tries to speak, but for one brief moment, no words come. 

Shiro looks at him apologetically, as if he has anything to be sorry for. 

“Shiro,” Keith whispers. 

Keith thinks of all the things Shiro holds inside himself, all the moments when Shiro looked lonely and— he hates to think that Shiro might be lonely even now, surrounded by the people who love him. 

“I like being near you,” Shiro murmurs when Keith says nothing more. “I feel like you’re actually looking at me. Like I’m here. Even if we’re quiet together… we’re together.” 

“Shiro,” Keith says again. He’s getting the fuzzy picture, the way one must shade with charcoal with a thought towards the void, how the brightest spot of light will be the place on the page the charcoal never touches. 

Keith fumbles, feeling ill-equipped to put to voice all the things he feels for Shiro. He grasps Shiro’s hand, so tight it’s nearly painful to see his own knuckles whiting. 

Keith knows about loneliness, too. They both do. Keith knows the feeling of void inside his own heart, how it gnaws and consumes all else, how it eclipses everything. Shiro has always been the brightest spot in his life and without him— well. Without him, there was never any light. 

They both know what it means to be invisible. 

“I— I’m here,” Keith says. “You’re here. I always see you.” 

Shiro smiles. “Yeah… You do, Keith.” 

Keith breathes out. 

Shiro looks down to their hands and slowly turns his, grasping Keith’s and squeezing gently. “So I think you’re being too harsh. Your drawings of me— they’re _good_. I feel…” He considers himself, collecting his words. “You get me. More than anyone else ever could.” 

“I always see you,” Keith says, thinking of all the sketches of Shiro he still hasn’t shown him. 

“So keep looking at me,” Shiro says. “Maybe it’ll help you figure out what’s missing.” 

Keith nods. It’s as good a thought as any. He sets down the sketchpad so he can sit on his knees, leaning forward towards Shiro. Shiro leans forward to meet him, his eyes locked on Keith’s. 

They hold like that for a moment, just staring into one another’s eyes. Keith tries to focus, to look at Shiro’s face objectively: the shape of his eyes, the slope of his nose, the quirk of his smiling mouth. 

Shiro’s face is always so soft when he looks at Keith. It’s different from how he looks to the public, and different even from how he looks at their friends. It’s a separate quality, something unique just to looking at Keith. 

When Shiro looks at Keith, there’s a smile meant only for Keith. Keith knows it. He’s always known that. He’s always known that Shiro treated him differently from the others— Keith was, is, special. 

Keith tries to quantify it. Tries to see how he might capture it on the page. The shine of Shiro’s eyes, the particular slant of his smile. The tilt of his head is something unique for Keith, he thinks. He’s not sure. 

“Are you looking?” Shiro murmurs and there’s a thread to his voice that Keith can’t place. 

Keith isn’t even moving the charcoal across the page. His sketchbook sits untouched beside him. His attention is focused solely on Shiro, on studying him, on meeting him. He wonders what Shiro sees when he looks at him, too. 

The longer he looks at Shiro’s face— tangible, present, gentle— the more Keith feels the swell of emotions inside him, bubbling up and tightening around his throat. 

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Shiro’s eyes widen and he makes the softest sound, reaching for him. “Keith—” 

“Sorry,” Keith gasps. 

“What’s wrong?” 

Keith shakes his head. He can’t describe the feeling of it, the knowledge within him. He can witness the rise and fall of Shiro’s chest, the flex of his muscles as he shifts and gets comfortable, the flicker in his eyes when he looks at Keith, mindful always to stay in the same position for Keith. 

When Keith draws him, Shiro is not a still life— he is alive, he is breathing, and he is here with Keith. 

Keith brought him back. He’ll bring him back a million times over if he must. Always. Forever. 

Shiro touches Keith’s cheek, thumb swiping away the tears. He murmurs, “It’s okay.” 

And maybe it is. Keith sniffles, his hand lifting to curl tight around Shiro’s wrist, to touch him, to feel his pulse point beneath his fingertips. He bows his head, forehead pressing against Shiro’s knuckles, his mouth nearly ghosting across his fingers in a kiss. He holds still and Shiro holds with him. 

“I can’t really explain it,” Keith says weakly.

“It’s alright,” Shiro says and shifts closer. His other hand lifts, curling around the back of Keith’s head. He holds him like that, surrounding Keith with his presence, and Keith’s hummingbird heart slows. He breathes in and back out again. He holds tight to Shiro who holds tight to him in turn. 

The words choke inside of Keith. “You’re here.” 

“I’m here,” Shiro says. “We’re here.” 

“We’re here,” Keith agrees. 

Keith doesn’t know how long he holds like that, surrounded by Shiro. When he draws back again, it’s to meet Shiro’s eyes— to keep looking at him, just as Shiro requested. Shiro’s hand on his cheek lingers, thumb swiping even once the tears have dried. 

Keith looks at Shiro, trying to place what it is that he gets wrong so many times. He knows Shiro’s eyes. He knows his smile. He knows the tilt of his head. He knows the way light splashes across his face. 

With anyone else, it’s hard to make eye contact, and this is easily the most intense he’s ever made. But it’s Shiro. Their staring reminds Keith of looking at Shiro when he first woke up in the Black Lion, how their eyes locked and held. How, after that, he always felt like Shiro was watching him. He never felt alone with Shiro shadowing him. 

If Shiro likes that he’s visible, that he’s seen, then that’s how he’s always made Keith feel. It feels like the two of them in Keith’s notebook, both in profile and looking at one another across the spiral spine. Keith spent a long time feeling like nobody ever saw him, either. 

Maybe that’s why he and Shiro understand each other so well. They look for each other. They can find each other even in the dark. 

Shiro looks at Keith with far too much quiet, a gentleness he shows nobody else. He looks at Keith like he _sees_ him, really sees him, and is delighted to do so. He looks at Keith like there’s nobody else in the universe. He looks at Keith like—

“Oh,” Keith whispers, hushed as the realization crests over him. 

“Oh?” Shiro murmurs back, something flickering in his eyes. 

Keith isn’t sure if he wants to hope. His heart is beating too fast. His hands are shaking. Even if he wanted to draw, there’s no way he could have a steady hand now. 

“You—” 

“Do you see me?” Shiro asks. He waits. “Keith?” 

Shiro’s eyes are a perfect grey, his smile a gentle tilt upward. The scar over the bridge of his nose softens him in a way, makes him look younger than Keith thought was possible. 

Keith’s sketchbook is full of Shiro— evidence of Keith looking at Shiro, studying Shiro, knowing Shiro. Shiro in the sketchbook is static. Unmoving and unchanging. The sketchbook is full of a Shiro who doesn’t feel the same way about Keith, every stroke on the page a reflection of that knowledge: Keith is a moon reflecting light back, never absorbing. 

Shiro looks at him and there’s hope there. 

“You… love me,” Keith says, the words breathing out of him— and he’s terrified once they leave him. The stillness drops down between them, suspended. 

And then— Shiro nods. 

“You—” Keith chokes, his hands tremble, and he’s fairly certain his vision tunnels for a moment. Still, he refuses to look away from Shiro’s eyes, going breathless. “Why— why didn’t you say anything?” 

The words sink out of him. Shiro doesn’t flinch, but his eyebrows pinch together, something apologetic flickering in his eyes. 

“You said I’m your brother,” Shiro says softly, his voice hushed. “I wasn’t sure if you—” 

“I said I love you after that,” Keith says. 

“I know,” Shiro says. “I— I wanted to be sure.” 

Keith feels nearly delirious with the words washing over him, unsure how to grasp onto any of it. It rushes around him. 

“Shiro… Do you see me?” Keith swallows, his throat dry. He can barely believe it. “Look at me.”

“I am,” Shiro whispers. Keith laughs, relieved and buoyant, and Shiro joins him. 

Shiro shifts closer, his hand reaching out. He touches his thumb to Keith’s jaw, then the slope of his scar. He touches Keith’s chin, tilting his face up. Keith’s gone breathless. He drifts closer towards Shiro and finds Shiro doing the same, the two of them falling closer to each other. Keith’s heart pounds a mile a minute. 

“I don’t know if I know how to draw love,” Keith says stupidly. 

Shiro’s smile grows. There’s something misty in his eyes. He curls his fingers around Keith’s jaw and draws him closer. His words are a whispered breath against Keith’s lips, “I think you do.” 

Keith breathes and surges forward, closing the distance. He kisses Shiro, his hands lifting to touch his shoulders, his sketchpad falling from his lap as he scoots in closer. He feels Shiro take a breath, the way his lips part, the way he kisses Keith back.

It’s blissful and a little overwhelming. Keith has to break the kiss, blinking his eyes quickly to clear away the sting of tears. Shiro’s thumb swipes the gentlest arc down his cheek, tracing the edge of his scar.

“Keith,” Shiro says, his words steady and sure. “I love you.” 

Keith hiccups, something between a laugh and a sob. He nods his head, reaching up to touch Shiro’s face, too. He smears the smallest streak of charcoal against his cheekbone, but it makes him look like one of Keith’s drawings come to life. 

Shiro curls his fingers around Keith’s wrist and turns his head, kissing Keith’s palm. There’s something poignantly tender about it and it makes Keith’s heart crack in his chest. He smiles, wobbly and overwhelmed, fingers curling slightly at the attention. 

“I got charcoal on your cheek,” he says quietly. 

Shiro smiles. “I don’t mind. You always make me look nice in charcoal, after all.”

Keith laughs again, soft and punched-out. He leans forward, kissing Shiro, and it feels surreal to be able to do so. Shiro breathes out his name against his mouth and melts into him, and that’s even more overwhelming. Shiro cups his palms over Keith’s cheeks, angling him just like Keith always angles Shiro for his poses, and it makes Keith tremble. 

Later, once Keith can breathe again, he’ll show Shiro all the pages and pages of his sketches, all the attempts to do Shiro justice. It will make Shiro blush, but he’ll smile, too, far too pleased. _Guess I know now why you make me so handsome, _he’ll tease and Keith will blush, hiding his face against Shiro’s shoulder.__

__Shiro will lie out, his head in Keith’s lap, and smile up at him. He’ll let Keith draw him that way, too, gazing up at him with the softest look in his eyes, like he’s finally found the peace he’s been searching for, all that grounding serenity. He’ll catch Keith’s charcoal-dusted hand and kiss each fingertip even when it makes Keith whine._ _

__Keith will finish the sketch and while he still won’t think it’s perfect, no matter what Shiro says, Keith won’t mind. It’s the right track, and he has the real thing before him. He can look into Shiro’s eyes and see what he’s missed._ _

__For now, though, all Keith can focus on is the blissful way Shiro kisses him or how he whispers, “I love you, Keith.”_ _

__He whispers it again and again, like he’s making up for lost time. It makes Keith tremble, and it’s perfect. He touches Shiro’s face, fingers tracing, like he might memorize the way to put him to paper._ _

__Shiro is a work of art and his hands on Keith make him feel like a masterpiece all his own. He tangles his fingers in Shiro’s silver hair, kissing him until he can’t breathe, kissing him until his mouth feels numb with it._ _

__“Shiro,” he murmurs, and it’s as loud as an _I love you._ It’s the happiest he can remember feeling, like Shiro’s memorized every curve of Keith’s soul, just like Keith has him. It’s as easy as that. _ _

__They fall into one another so easily, the two of them orbiting each other. Keith pulls back from the kiss to look into Shiro’s eyes and finds Shiro looking back, his smile kiss-soft and all his. It’s something all their own— something they created together._ _

__“Can I draw you?” Keith whispers, fingertips touching Shiro’s smiling mouth._ _

__Shiro beams at him, his eyes shining. “Always.”_ _

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject) (including the [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/commentbuilder)), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates responses, including:
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